LONGMONT -- Roy Choudhary has only one photo of Beatriz "Betty" Cintora-Silva, and in it she is just 3.

She stares into the camera with bright blue eyes and holds her blonde ponytail in her tiny fist.

The image represented Cintora-Silva's innocence, he said, and she had given him the photo along with a request to help her find her innocence again.

"I could not take her back to innocence," Choudhary said Wednesday. "I couldn't even save her life."

Choudhary had known her for only six months before her ex-boyfriend shot and killed her early Tuesday morning, along with her sister and brother-in-law in the couple's home east of Longmont, before turning the gun on himself. Daniel Sanchez, just hours out of the Boulder County Jail where he was booked after being arrested for a domestic-violence attack on Cintora-Silva over the weekend, told a 911 dispatcher that he had killed everyone in the Longview Estates home because Cintora-Silva was cheating on him with "Roy."

From left: Valeria Gutierrez, Beatriz "Betty" Cintora-Silva, and Valeria's sister Raquel Gutierrez are seen in this undated photo.

That was not the case, Choudhary said. He said Sanchez's relationship with Cintora-Silva ended on Thanksgiving, when Sanchez beat her and she moved out of the basement room she shared with him at 174 Mount Massive Way and into her sister and brother-in-law's home. The breakup was hard on her, he said, but he had been friends with her before that and she had confided in him that Sanchez had been both verbally and physically abusive to her over their four-year relationship. He went to help her after she reached out to him on Thanksgiving when he was at a friend's home.

"I left the party. I said, 'I will come and see you,'" he recalled.

She had to return to the home she shared with Sanchez several times to retrieve her possessions, but it was clear the couple had broken up.

On Wednesday, Choudhary was just beginning to mourn for "a very, very gentle soul, always to make the other person happy."

His relationship with her started as a casual friendship while she was with Sanchez and had only started to take root as possibly more than that after Thanksgiving, he said. Choudhary and another friend took Cintora-Silva to the Longmont Police Department on Saturday, where she reported that she had met with Sanchez in his truck in the Best Buy parking lot to discuss repayment of $1,000 she had loaned him. Sanchez got angry when she received a text message from Choudhary, took her phone from her and then texted and called Choudhary and threatened him, according to police reports. She said Sanchez then drove away with her in the truck and slammed her into the dashboard angrily during a confrontation over her budding relationship with Choudhary.

Beatriz "Betty" Cintora-Silva, 3 years old.

Ultimately, he let her go, but he was arrested on Sunday. According to police reports he admitted that "I was the aggressor."

Choudhary said on Wednesday that he had a "soft spot" for Cintora-Silva, whom he met at Chipotle at 1100 Ken Pratt Blvd., where she worked, about six months ago. He was a customer and was friends with another employee.

"During our friendship, little by little, I got to know her," he said.

They enjoyed each other's company, and she began to confide in him that her relationship with Sanchez was abusive. She told him about her discovery that Sanchez was married and had a child in Texas, yet jealously maintained his relationship with her in Longmont, forcing her to make herself scarce when his family visited. She detailed a relationship in which Sanchez would lash out and abuse her and then return with flowers or candy to mend fences. Choudhary said she dreamed of marrying Sanchez one day. Culturally, he said, she believed she was bound to him.

After the couple broke up, Choudhary said she turned to him. He introduced her to his friends and they would go out hiking, for meals or to movies. Maria Cintora-Silva, who was also shot and killed Tuesday morning, had told Choudhary that she was grateful for his presence in her sister's life. Choudhary said Sanchez had intentionally isolated Betty Cintora-Silva from her family. The sisters have aunts and cousins in Longmont.

The sisters had lost their mother to a heart attack in 2009 shortly after the family moved to Longmont from their tiny hometown in Mexico and, Betty Cintora-Silva often visited her mother's grave, where she would talk to her mother and say things she didn't tell anyone else.

"(Maria) said, 'Roy, you are the first person who knows besides that gravestone she talks to,'" Choudhary said.

After Sanchez's arrest, he said, he and the sisters were all scared. Choudhary said he received a call on his home phone from the Boulder County Jail on Monday night to make him aware of Sanchez's release because he was also listed as a victim after Sanchez threatened him. However, when he checked with Betty Cintora-Silva, who was working at one of her jobs at Marshall's, she told him she had not received the notification.

"I tell her, 'I don't think it is safe for you to go back home,'" he said. "Don't take this thing lightly."

He said he offered her a spare bedroom in his west Longmont home, but she declined.

Choudhary said he believes that some of his concerns about the situation were not heard by Longmont police and that they did not respond to his emails on Sunday and Monday about his worries that Sanchez would harass the family. He plans to meet with Longmont Public Safety Chief Mike Butler.

Choudhary said a friend's wife wanted to talk with Betty Cintora-Silva about safety in domestic violence situations and he planned to take her to Safe Shelter to talk to staff there Tuesday, but the plans were too late.

Choudhary found out about the shootings about 8 a.m. Tuesday when Longmont police visited his home to make sure he was OK.

He heard Sanchez had left his truck running outside of scene of the shootings. That makes him wonder if Sanchez planned to visit his home if he had not found Betty Cintora-Silva at her sister's house.

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